have much time.”
Tanalasta did not need to ask the cause for the wizard’s hurry If he had been trying to ringspeak with her, the phantom would know they had become separated and might well return in the hope of finding her alone. She galloped after the wizard and was quickly joined by Cadimus, who seemed to have regained his proud spirit with the sight of his master.
Tanalasta caught up to the flying wizard and positioned herself beneath him. “Vangey, why are we running from that thing?” She had to crane her neck back to call up to him. “Why didn’t you just kill it when you had the chance?”
When Vangerdahast glanced down, he actually looked embarrassed. “It took me somewhat by surprise,” he admitted. “And to tell you the truth, I really don’t know what in the Nine Hells a ghazneth is.”
“Ghazneth?”
They reached the base of the hill, and Vangerdahast had to fly up out of speaking range. They angled up the slope westward until the slope grew rocky enough to conceal hoof prints from casual detection, then cut eastward away from the orcs still milling about on the battlefield on the Stonebolt Trail. Tanalasta glimpsed the area just long enough to see that Ryban had stayed to engage the swiners. She saw a dozen Purple Dragons lying among the dead, and small bands of orcs were already squabbling over the carcasses of at least twice that many horses. Her stomach grew hollow and queasy, and she prayed the lionar had not stayed to fight because he thought she was in danger-though of course that was the only reasonable explanation.
Once they had ascended high enough that the plain below vanished into the stonemurk, Vangerdahast led the way around the shoulder of the mountain. He guided them into the shelter of a rocky gully, then left Tanalasta to tether the horses and keep watch while he surveyed possible escape routes. When he returned, he pointed up the mountain about three quarters of a mile, to where a large, spirelike rock sat on the crest of a ridge.
“If the ghazneth finds us, use your cloak’s escape pocket to go up there, then slip around the other side and start riding.” He glowered at her from one eye. “You haven’t used it yet, have you?”
Tanalasta shook her head.
“And you do remember how?”
“I’m inexperienced, not daft.” Tanalasta motioned toward the secret pocket inside her weathercloak. “These cloaks aren’t that hard to use. Why all this bother anyway? Just kill the damned thing and be done with it.”
Again, Vangerdahast flushed. “I’m afraid it’s not that easy.”
Tanalasta raised her brow. “I thought you could kill anything.”
“I didn’t want to be hasty,” said Vangerdahast, neatly dodging the question. He pulled a handful of spell components from his pocket and began to lay them out on a boulder, using his work as an excuse to avoid Tanalasta’s gaze. “It knew my name.”
“Of course it knew your name.” As she spoke, Tanalasta continued to keep watch. “It was listening to our ring-talk.”
Vangerdahast said something else, but Tanalasta did not really hear it. A terrible thought had occurred to her, and she was trying desperately to think of a reason it could not be true. When she failed, the princess grasped Vangerdahast’s elbow.
“Vangey, what if that’s the reason Alusair removed her signet?”
Vangerdahast looked confused and said nothing, and the princess realized he had been paying no more attention to her than she had to him. She pulled her signet from her pocket and displayed it in her open palm.
“Vangerdahast, I took this off so it wouldn’t draw the ghazneth to me,” she said. “What if Alusair did the same thing?”
Vangerdahast frowned. “Why should she do that? The ghazneth is here.” The wizard’s eyes lit in comprehension, then he said, “No!”
“We don’t know anything’s wrong,” said Tanalasta, trying to calm him. “Alusair’s silence could mean she’s being cautious. After all, she has no way of knowing where the thing is.”
Looking more concerned than ever, Vangerdahast turned to face Tanalasta. “I wasn’t worried about Alusair, thank you very much.” The wizard’s face was paling before Tanalasta’s eyes. “I told you. The ghazneth said I owed it something. If I don’t pay, Cormyr will.”
“You talked to this thing?” Tanalasta found herself looking at the wizard’s wrinkled face instead of keeping watch.
“It’s not as though we had tea,” Vangerdahast growled. “The thing was bound in a magic web.”
“And you let it out?”
“I didn’t let it do anything. It dissolved my web, or absorbed it, or something. I really don’t know.” The wizard went over to Cadimus and removed a spellbook from the stallion’s saddlebags. “When we get back to Arabel, maybe the Sage Most Learned can tell me what exactly a ghazneth is. I can’t teleport us back until tomorrow, but if we can last the night-“
“Back?” Tanalasta echoed. “To Arabel?”
Vangerdahast opened his spellbook and absently began to flip through the pages. “Of course. You can’t think I intend to keep you out here.”
“And you can’t think I would return until we’ve found Alusair!”
Vangerdahast slammed his spellbook shut. “Enough, Princess! Your games have already cost the lives of too many good men.”
“My games, Vangerdahast?”
“Your games,” the wizard insisted. “Were you not the one who insisted that we destroy the orc tribe ‘like Alusair would?’”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean-“
“And now we have lost Ryban’s entire company.”
“How can you call that my fault?” Tanalasta was genuinely hurt. “They were supposed to loose a few arrows and flee!”
“That does not change what happened,” Vangerdahast insisted. “You have been playing with men’s lives, and I will have no more of it.”
Tanalasta narrowed her eyes. “I’m sorry for the loss of Ryban and his men, Vangerdahast, but I am not playing at anything. If you and the king are, tell me now.”
“The king is quite serious, I assure you. He will not have an order of spell-beggars placed in such a position of influence.”
“He won’t, Vangerdahast?” Tanalasta demanded. “Or you won’t?”
“Our thoughts are the same on this matter,” insisted Vangerdahast. “But that has nothing to do with your imminent return to Arabel. It’s treason for you to blackmail the crown by placing yourself-and others-in this kind of danger.”
“It’s only blackmail if the king is bluffing,” Tanalasta said. “And if he is, the treason lies on your head, not mine. I have done nothing but take him at his word.”
“The king does not bluff his own daughter.”
“Then our duty is clear,” said Tanalasta. “The king sent us to find the crown princess, and this ghazneth creature only makes it that much more urgent for us to do so.”
Vangerdahast exhaled loudly, clearly frustrated by the dilemma in which he found himself. Tanalasta turned back to her duties as a watchman, scanning the stonemurk for the first dark hint of wings on the horizon.
“Princess, be reasonable,” said Vangerdahast. “While everything you say is true, even you must admit your father hardly had something like this in mind when he sent you-“
“I can’t know what the king had in mind,” Tanalasta said. “What I do know is that I am here, and that the king himself charged me with finding Alusair.”
Silently, the princess added that she needed to complete her mission precisely because the king had not expected the mission to be dangerous. Allowing the phantom to force her back to Arabel would only confirm his belief that she needed to be protected. But if she actually located Alusair and discovered what was happening in the Stonelands, perhaps he would begin to have confidence in the decisions she would one day make as queen.
After a moment, Vangerdahast sighed. “Very well. If you must pretend not to understand what this trip is really about, I shall explain it to you.”
Tanalasta held up her hand. “That won’t be necessary, Vangerdahast. What you don’t seem to understand is
